Friday, August 22, 2014

How the media fails James Foley with censorship.

I wasn't going to watch this video at first. I'd seen the Daniel Perl video. But the longer people talked about it it - I finally relented. Only to find out that a great deal of the internet had started scrubbing this video.

Youtube has started a blanket removal of videos with violence. You used to be able to verify you were over 18, then you were able view graphic videos. Twitter has followed suit. And I know the parents asked twitter to take the video down. But it seems like this guys whole mission in being a conflict reporter was to show the horror of the world. It's ironic that Youtube and Twitter now try to make his (and others like him) purpose in life invisible.

And the weird thing about this - the Foley video wasn't anywhere near as graphic as the Perl video. They are not even in the same ballpark.  They didn't show more than a few seconds of the beheading and then a snap to an image of the tragic final result.

I don't take saying these things lightly. I personally have seen one of my family members in a body bag on the evening news. Not killed horrifically like Foley. He was killed in a fire. You see this stuff on the news all the time, but when it's your family member it shakes you to the core. However - it is reality. Maybe you don't want to see it, but the record should be there for future generations.

It's just frustrating to see the internet regressing in freedom right at the time we need it the most. Making it hard for people to see what is happening in the world only makes less people want to spend the time searching this evil out. Just not looking at the images does not make it go away. Nothing can illuminate the horrors of the world like a camera. And for those images not to have a chance to make the light of sun just makes me think the terrorist win. They don't stop because we are too weak and turn away.

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